Are you living like Jesus? Are you Christlike? This is the test. If we want to know if we are living in God, this is the test of discipleship. And when it comes to application, the question is whether we are loving one another in a giving and sacrificial manner…
3 And we can be sure that we know [Jesus] if we obey his commandments. 4 If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth. 5 But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him. That is how we know we are living in him. 6 Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
7 Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before. 8 Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it. For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.
1John 2:3-8 NLT
Do you want to know Jesus? Then obey his commandments. It is very interesting to consider the commands of Jesus. Lucy and I were at a community group meeting recently in which John 13:34 was studied. This was the moment when Jesus introduced the ‘new commandment’ for his disciples to love one another.
We heard how offensive Jesus’ words might have been to any person who was raised in and living under Judaism. There is only one God. There are only twelve commandments. No one makes commandments except God. So who does Jesus think he is?!?! His disciples did not respond this way. They had become accustomed to his new teachings. And after the resurrection, they relied on this teaching as the basis of Jesus’ direction to the early church.
Now over forty years later, John was still quoting from that night. To claim personal relationship with God while not obeying God’s commands is hypocritical. John calls them liars. He goes even further to say that if you want to know whether you are living in God, check to see if you are living as Jesus did.
This is it folks. This is the land of WWJD. We have arrived. Please fasten your sandals, grab your tunic, and check to make sure you are not leaving anything on the bus. Jesus would take his trash and deposit it outside in the bin. Please do likewise as your discipleship duty.
Are you living like Jesus? Are you Christlike? This is the test. And we have an application to start us off: Are you loving one another?
In the latter half of our portion of scripture today, we see references to the very beginning and this command being old but also new. You might be confused by the language. We know back to the time of the Law of Moses that God’s people were to love their neighbours as themselves (Leviticus 19:8). Jesus upped this standard with his new command in John 13:34 – love one another as I have loved you.
The newness of the command is that the standard of love is not how humans treat themselves, it is how Jesus loved us. When we understand this, we can see how darkness disappears and true light shines in a world in which people love like Jesus.
He gave his life for us. His love was sacrificial. “Jesus lived the truth of this commandment.” We are to live our lives “as Jesus did.” If we want to be sure that we know God, and that we are living in him, this is our priority for the rest of our time on earth.
Amen.
Marc Kinna
marckinna 